


For eternity

by Butterfish



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Crimes & Criminals, Dreams, Life Partners, Love, M/M, Old Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfish/pseuds/Butterfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred and Arthur have a past together - but what is it and how did they end up the way they are today? At an old age Arthur is interviewed about his past as a criminal robbing banks together with his lover Alfred. But the interview turns out to be something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For eternity

As I arrive at the retirement home by the beach in Cornwall, I’m tired and my suit is crumbled. I’ve been riding the coach from Stansted Airport for eight hours and I’m not feeling my best, but the fresh air out here quickly slaps some colour on my cheeks and I’m even humming joyfully as I walk down the path towards the grand building. It looks stunning; the silver banister with the curly patterns is newly restored, and the white pillars are covered in green plants swirling from the ground all the way up to the porch roof covering the small patio by the entrance. The man I’m here to visit is already sitting outside. He straightens up as I come closer and finally he grabs his cane to push himself up standing. He’s blind, yet he knows I’ve arrived as I step up next to the table to greet him.

“My dad used to say only famous people gets to be interviewed,” he says with a hoarse voice and shakes my hand warmly. “I guess he was wrong!” He laughs deeply and gestures for me to sit down. The table is set with tea and scones and muffins so big that they’re popping out of their wrapping. It feels like I’m visiting an old friend and I don’t even have to bother with formalities; he easily grabs the teapot as if he could see it, pours me a cup and asks if I want one or two cubes or sugar. As I gently tell him I would prefer no tea at all, he seems thoughtful for a moment before putting down the pot. “I’ve only heard that once before in my life,” he says. “But that’s many years ago. From a man I hardly knew and yet knows all about. Alfred Jones, that was his name. Alfred Jones.” I can tell he finds it hard to pronounce the name. He lifts his cup, his hand shivering lightly as he has a sip of the tea, and then he shakes his head. “But you know that. That’s why you’re here. To hear about Alfred. But I can tell you already,” he pauses, looks straight at me from behind his thick sunglasses and slowly mumbles, “– it’s a grim story.”

**Little money, big dreams**  
Arthur Kirkland is the name of the man I’m visiting. He appears to be an average man at the retirement home; he’s 79 years old, he’s got a friendly personality, but due to a car accident years ago he’s blind, and he often needs support in walking. When his legs give up he relies on the nursing assistant to bring him to and from his room. “It was hard getting used to others taking care of me,” Arthur tells me. His whole life he’s been the one taking care of himself.

Arthur grew up in a big family where there was plenty of love but little money to support everyone. “Everyone was expected to work,” he explains. “When I got home from school, I swept the floors and prepared dinner, and when I went to bed at night it was one of my brothers who tucked me in. Mum and Dad were always busy earning money. They loved us, but they didn’t have the time to show it. I suppose that’s what made all of us compete for attention. We siblings were always fighting.”

They couldn’t afford a television at home, but Arthur’s best friend had one and whenever he had time off, he went over to sit and watch the news together with his family in the living room. That’s where he learned about America and the American dream. Arthur laughs while talking about it. “It sounds like such nonsense. These days kids go online and they know everything about the world. They type it into a search engine and they know. But we didn’t know anything unless we went to school and when you don’t have money, you don’t always show up for class. No, I learnt about the states through telly and it all looked glamorous; film stars in coats made out of fur and businessmen who worked their way up from selling newspapers on the street to becoming bankers. I thought that if they could do it, so could I.”

As soon as Arthur had finished secondary school, he started working for a privately owned shipping company loading the ships, but the sailors soon noticed his great knowledge about navigation. “I didn’t care for ships. I just wanted to cross the ocean!” Arthur smiles, and at the age of eighteen he did.

**The man in the crowd**  
Arthur is hesitant talking about his first two years in the states. As I ask him about what he did for work, he start pouring himself another cup of tea and grabs a muffing. While tearing it apart into small, edible pieces, his lips crumble into a secretive grimace as if he’s trying to hold something back. “What do you do when you don’t have money?” he asks out in the open. “You do what you need to do.” He’s much happier talking about what happened as he turned 21.

By then Arthur had gotten work as an actor at a small theatre. “I did a little of everything,” he says. “I did some scriptwriting, I helped with the costumes, I did art for the posters – just a little of everything. To me it didn’t really matter all that much that I wasn’t a praised star. I didn’t want to become one of those who just sits back and lets others do the work. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was more than I looked to be.” Night after night he managed to catch the audience’s attention and he was soon a beloved member of the staff. But especially one man had taken an interest in Arthur’s talent. “Oh Alfred Jones I noticed early on,” Arthur smiles and presses his sunglasses further up his nose as he seems to gaze up at the sky thoughtfully. “He was at every show I did, no matter the time of the day, no matter the weather. He was dressed nicely in a suit. I thought he looked amazing, but the others told me it was cheap and second-hand and falling apart by the seams. But I didn’t care. He bought me roses. He was so sweet.”

Alfred and Arthur started chatting, and although Arthur didn’t really know who this man was, they soon fell in love. They went for walks and ate out every night, and Arthur started wondering where Alfred had the money from. “He always paid the bills. Always. He didn’t want it to be any other way. The one time I insisted on paying, he got angry and I didn’t see him for a week. From then on I never said anything. I let him treat me. It was strange. But it felt nice. Someone cared for me and we just fitted so well together. How couldn’t I love him?” Arthur laughs at this and shakes his head. “How couldn’t I love him…” he mumbles again and for a while we’re both quiet. We just eat the muffins and enjoy the silence.

**Hitting the road**  
“I know what you want to hear about,” Arthur says after a bit. “How we robbed banks. That’s what people want to know about. But they never ask what went on beforehand. They just want the story of Bonnie and Clyde. But it was different.”

“I couldn’t make it as an actor. That much was clear early on. I was a good actor, I’ll say that much, but you have to be extraordinary to make it just doing that. And I wasn’t anything special in that sense. The theatre closed down after a few years and I was left with no money. Alfred told me not to worry. He said he had a job that would always keep him rich. He’d never told me what he really did, he didn’t like talking about it, but that’s when he let me in on his secret – he was a thief, a man who robbed banks. At first I thought he was joking. But he was quite serious.” Arthur sips his tea quietly. He’s told the story many times before and he appears to be emotionless about it by now, but it’s the small signs that tells me that he does care for what he’s saying; he sounds slightly out of breath, he’s suddenly started sweating, and he can’t stop touching the golden ring he’s wearing. The letters ‘AJ’ are engraved into the top of it.

“I was very angry when I found out he was telling the truth. I really was and make sure you get that in the article. People has made me out to be, I don’t know, heartless. But I wasn’t. We were poor, we were in love, and Alfred assured me it was all innocent business. I know it sounds stupid, but to me it didn’t seem too bad – he had rules. He would never kill anyone and he would never harm anyone. It was all about getting in and getting out quickly. He didn’t even carry a gun. With time I got charmed. I suppose I did. We ended up hitting the road together and I didn’t look back.”

**Strangers in love**  
Arthur’s nurse shortly stops the interview. It’s time for his medication. I sit outside as he’s helped into the kitchen to get his shot and three daily pills – a blue one, a red one, and a yellow one. As he comes back out he looks more relaxed. He’s not sweating anymore and the green shirt has been changed into a white one. He’s also wearing a black tie. As he sits down, he asks me just to be sure she gave him the right colours. “Sometimes they trick me,” he laughs before returning to the story.

“There’s been written a book about all the things we did. I don’t care to go into details. The one thing I will say, though, is that they got the first robbery wrong. The author makes it out to be the most thrilling of them all when really it was the most boring thing I’ve ever witnessed. I guess that’s why I got the courage to go on – it seemed so easy!” Arthur says as he corrects his tie and asks me to pour him a new cup of tea. He’s almost emptied the pot by now all by himself. We’ve been sitting outside for an hour now. It’s getting chillier, but the breeze feels welcoming in the else strong heat. I catch myself wondering how he can drink hot liquid in this weather.

“It was a private bank,” Arthur explains. “Run by a little, old lady. It was the first robbery she’d ever experienced, but she took it calmly. We went in and I stood guarding the door as Alfred went up to her and told her straight up that he was there for her money and he would appreciate if she just gave them without a fight. And she did! I don’t know if it was because he looked so honest. Or maybe she felt sorry for us. But we were handed money and she even told us that she would call the police when we left, so we hurried outside and jumped into Alfred’s car and drove away. That night we slept at a nice hotel. I thought that life was going to be amazing. I’d never had that much money between my hands before. Alfred teased me by filling the bathtub with it and have me crawl in.”

“After that we just kept going. Sometimes it was boring and easy. Other times we had to flee from bullets being shot at us and dogs biting us in the arse! For fifteen years we had the time of our lives. We became well known and yet no one knew us. We didn’t even know each other. That’s what people find strange. I told Alfred a lot about my family, but never really myself, and he told me a lot about himself, but never mentioned his family. To this day I don’t know how he grew up. But I guess he didn’t have it well. The first time I saw him naked, he was showering in a lake while I was watching his clothes, and I noticed he had scars all over his back. Not normal scars. Like deep burns. It looked like someone had burnt him. I don’t know. I don’t think I would want to know if someone could tell me today. No, I wouldn’t want to know. We don’t need to know it all, do we?” He asks me but he doesn’t need my reply. Instead he quickly changes the story before I get to ask him a question; he holds out his hand and points to his ring.

“This is important,” he says. “Do you know why?”

**The promise of eternity**  
The ring is old but really is still beautiful. I read the inscription again and again without touching it. Arthur doesn’t want me to feel it. “We’d been together for almost twenty years when he gave it to me. We couldn’t get legally married. Of course not. But we exchanged rings as a promise of eternal love. We were close. I can’t explain just how close. Not just because of the robberies. People think we stayed together because we relied on each other to survive. We did, but not because of the money – because we liked spending every second of our day together. We never left each other’s side in all those years. Not until that December. You know which. That December was horrible. It was the grimmest thing I’ve ever experienced. That says a lot, I’ve been in plenty of accidents later in my life, horrible accidents. But this was the worst thing ever.”

Arthur takes a long, deep breath and I give him time to recover from all he’s been saying. The sky is turning dark and I know he can sense time is running out for the interview, especially as he lifts the teapot and finds it empty, but he wrinkles his brows thoughtfully and takes his time. He needs it.

“It had been a horrible morning. We fought. For the first time in all those years we fought. Not with firsts, dear no, we shouted and screamed at each other. I can’t even remember why. It was probably because of something silly. But that day we hated each other and that’s why things went wrong. Neither of us were prepared for the robbery. Not really. And they had been expecting us. I think it was the men at the hotel who called the police, they must have heard us shouting. We didn’t even think about what we shouted.” Arthur shakes his head and smiles a little. “We were like kids. Oh boy, we were fools. As we arrived at the bank, we were angry and we didn’t even notice the odd mood in the place. Even before Alfred reached the counter, the policemen stepped out. We had to flee. The rain of bullets was horrible. We threw ourselves into the car and just hurried down the road, but they were right behind us. It was so cold. It was so very cold and the roads were icy, we couldn’t drive still, we were swinging all over. At one point Alfred was hit by a bullet in his hand and he lost control of the wheel. We rammed into a pole and I blacked out. By the time I woke up, I was in the hospital. I didn’t know where Alfred was. No one would tell me.”

“I was judged alone. I stood alone in front of him as he sentenced me to jail. They took everything from me. Even my ring. At that point I felt naked, stripped down and done with. Still no one told me what happened to Alfred. No one said a word. I thought that maybe he had died. I wanted to die myself.”

**Freedom and forgiveness**  
Arthur was in jail for twenty years until he was released for good behaviour. It wasn’t until then that he was told what happened to Alfred after he blacked out. “I was told he saved me,” Arthur says and smiles a little. “I was bleeding horribly. I’d stopped breathing and the police was coming closer, but instead of saving himself, he dragged me out of the car, onto the ground and started giving me heart massage. He got me back to life. I would’ve been dead else. As the police caught up with us, he told them he did it all. He took all the blame. He made it sound like I was forced through it all. Silly man. Of course they didn’t believe him, but that’s why they separated us – to have me tell my side before hearing his. To make sure I wouldn’t be affected. But that’s the crazy thing – he never made it to court.”

The events around Alfred’s arrest are unclear even today, but its said he had friends within the police which helped him to escape. Documents later revealed that he’d tried to make them get Arthur out of the hospital as well, but he was still too weak to leave and no one would support this idea. Instead Alfred fled alone and was never heard from again. “It’s been too long now,” Arthur says with a quiet tone to his voice. “He’s never coming back. But I forgive him. He saved my life. How can I not forgive him? If he wanted to find me, he would have. He’s that smart. But he hasn’t wanted to.”

“The rest of my life is a bore. I’ve worked small jobs. I’ve made little money. I’ve been slowly accepted back into my family. That’s why I returned to England – I couldn’t stay in a country where everyone looked at me as being a robber. Here no one cared for my past. I got work at my brothers’ factory and was there until I was in a car accident which left me blind. Then I went onto state support. Now I’m just an old, silly man with a very dramatic life story. Things change, don’t they? They do.”

**A hope for the future**  
As Arthur finishes his story, it’s gotten very dark outside and he’s shaking a little. He’s chilly and tired, and he needs to sleep. Still he seems sad that I have to leave. “Thank you for listening,” he says as I get up. “I hope you can use my story. It’s been long since I told it. Thank you.”

I thank him for participating and as I shake his hand, I place a small wrapped present in it. “You can open this in a week,” I say, “when I come back to assure that I got all the details right in the article. But not before then.” Arthur naturally looks confused, but he agrees and I watch as he returns into the home, followed by the nurse who then kindly escorts me back to the bus stop. As I sit there in the cold and think about Arthur’s story, I realise how close to my heart it is.

Maybe one day you readers will realise why that is.

**Author's Note:**

> This article has been published with the permission of the writer Alfred Jones who wrote it after visiting the love of his youth, Arthur Kirkland. Mr. Jones wishes to keep his whereabouts secret, but wants us to let the readers know that he visited Arthur again a week after the interview as he opened the package with his old ring in it. Since then Arthur has left the retirement home and it’s not known where he’s at now.


End file.
